This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Over the course of time, several vehicle exhaust systems have incorporated active and/or passive valve assemblies to alter the characteristics of the exhaust flow through a conduit as an exhaust pressure increases due to an increasing engine speed. Active valves typically carry an increased expense associated with an actuator, such as an electric solenoid. Passive valves utilize the pressure of the exhaust flow in the conduit to actuate the valve. Even though the passive valves are typically less expensive, traditional passive valves may create an undesirable increase in backpressure as the valve opens.
Both active and passive valves may be subject to difficulties in manufacturability that may be susceptible to vibration related noise and valve flutter caused by fluctuations in the exhaust flow rate exiting the engine. Additional complexities have arisen in the prior art in that several different variations of a certain passive valve are manufactured to account for different engine/vehicle specifications. Undesirable product proliferation may exist in order to account for the wide range of internal combustion engine displacements and exhaust conduit diameters used by vehicle manufacturers. Accordingly, a need in the art exists for a relatively inexpensive valve that may be easily manufactured from a small number of common subcomponents that meets the broad range of requirements from original equipment vehicle manufacturers.